


Make a Supersonic Woman of You

by dedicatedfollower467



Series: Whatever This World Can Give to Me [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Gender Issues, Genderfluid Character, I am still surprised every time I write a fic about these two and it can be read as gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 11:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19317523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: One morning he wakes up and decides to be a she.





	Make a Supersonic Woman of You

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Don't Stop Me Now." Part of me wanted to try doing different songs for each of the titles in this fic, but this works so well.
> 
> Lots of discussion about gender in this fic! I'm a cis woman myself, so I welcome insight from trans and nb folk!
> 
> EDIT: Many thanks to the wonderful [Splintered_Star](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splintered_Star/works) for beta'ing!
> 
> EDIT 2: So as of Neil's Tweet about Crowley and the Crucifixion scene back in July, this fic is no longer canonical. I didn't think about it at the time, but after a commenter pointed it out, I've changed the tags and I'm writing a little note here to say Crowley officially still goes by Crowley, no matter what gender they're presenting as. It's just that this fic wouldn't make any sense if that is the case, so this is a slightly-to-the-left AU now.

One morning he wakes up and decides to be a she.

There’s not much to change - mostly just her clothing and the way she styles her long red locks. She already miracles her clothing on a daily basis, anyway, so it’s a quick snap to make herself a high-waisted black gown with a wide neckline that almost falls off the shoulder, with delicate frills along its edges and subtle black-on-black embroidery worked into the hemline. She draws her hair up in an elegant bun, parted down the center, with ringlets cascading around her face.

It really is just two quick snaps, one for the clothes and one for the hair, and she’s ready.

Going out on the streets is sometimes harder, as a woman, but she can certainly take care of herself. And it’s fun, flirting subtly with the men who wander up the street, coquettishly coughing behind her hand and smiling as they walk past. She tempts more men into adultery in their hearts than she has in _years_ , and though they never quite get to the follow-through, she had forgotten how much _fun_ it could be.

She’s been a woman for about a week, and is having a good evening in an excellent little bar in one of the seedier areas of London when she hears a voice she really hadn’t expected to hear. Usually _she’s_ the one to find Aziraphale, not the other way around, unless the angel has something to be done under the Arrangement.

“Crowley!” comes the delighted cry, and she winces.

She turns to see the angel, in his typical clothing - cream color scheme, gorgeously tailored waistcoat, and a coat that’s just a _bit_ old-fashioned. He looks so delighted to see her that she can’t find it in herself to be mad at him for using the name. (At least it’s not _Crawly_.)

“It’s Carol, now, actually” she says as the angel sits down. “People don’t go around calling women by last name the way they do with men.”

“Oh! Of course, my dear, I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale says, and then an awkward silence starts to fester between them.

He’s going to ask the question, she just knows it, and she _loathes_ it. Hell had asked her the same question the first time she’d been a woman, and she hated it then, and she is going to hate it now, and she absolutely positively _does not_ want to justify her gender and sartorial choices to an Angel of the Lord, to hold it over her head for the rest of her life. Even if that angel is Aziraphale.

“So are you… doing gender now, then?” he asks, tentatively.

It’s not the question she had expected, and it catches her off-guard.

“What do you mean _doing gender_ , what kind of question is that?” she demands, staring at him. “Of course I’m _doing gender_ I’ve been _doing_ bloody _gender_ for thousands of years! I _was_ a man the last time you saw me, you know!”

She’s incensed. The idea that Aziraphale only thinks that her being a woman is “doing gender” rubs her in all the wrong ways.

“Oh, were you?” says Aziraphale sheepishly, clearly embarrassed. “I’m - I’m afraid I hadn’t noticed.”

“What do you mean you _hadn’t noticed_ , I was wearing proper men’s clothes, a coat and waistcoat and breeches and everything.”

“Well, I mean, I wear those sorts of things, too,” he says, almost distractedly. “Clothing hardly matters, does it? _You’re_ the one who brought it up.”

There’s a pause as her brain cranks, and Carol registers that she may just possibly have got the angel a bit wrong.

“You’re saying you’re not a man?” she says, and it comes out like an accusation, as much as she’d rather it didn’t. “ _Mister_ Ezra Fell, who dresses like the most hedonist kind of fop, isn’t a man?”

Aziraphale looks uncomfortable, but also put out. “I like men’s clothes,” he says, primly. “I like the cut and the shape of them. And it’s not as though I can help the kind of assumptions humans make when they look at me, now can I? I may like this body but it does leave certain impressions when I dress it this way. And - and it’s not as though there’s really any good English terms for someone who isn’t anything.”

Carol feels her shoulders lower. “So you - all this time you’ve just - not had a gender?”

“No,” says Aziraphale. “And I don’t care to either. I had - well, I had rather assumed you were the same way, until just now.”

She thinks about this. “Hang on, now,” she says. “You’ve seen me in dresses and all that before. What about all that business with Nefertiti, huh?”

Aziraphale eyes her with something like disdain, and it always fills her with a kind of giddiness whenever the angel displays an emotion that clearly _isn’t_ divine love for all God’s creatures.

“If we’re talking about gender, Nefertiti is hardly the best example of things being at all clear-cut,” Aziraphale says wryly. “And I _did_ just say that clothing hardly matters.”

“So it wasn’t my clothes,” Carol says. “It was my name.”

“Well, most specifically, pointing out that men’s and women’s names work differently,” Aziraphale says.

“I’ve used women’s names before, too. Egypt comes to mind again.” Carol knows she is belabouring the point, but she also wants to understand.

“Yes, but not with _me_.” Aziraphale says it so quietly that she almost doesn’t catch it. When she turns to look at him, he clarifies. “It was always an alias for the benefit of humans,” he says. “You could hardly go around calling yourself _Crawly_ without odd looks. And - and it’s not as if you call me _Ezra._ ”

And he’s right. Back when she was still going by Crawly, she’d also assumed a variety of aliases, none of which lasted much longer than it took to get a temptation over and done with. And Aziraphale has used several different names over the years, and she’s never called him by a single one of them. He’s always been Aziraphale, and she’s always been Crowley - until now.

Carol hums and says, “Well, I’ve had gender since about the 23rd century. Akkad.”

“Good heavens,” Aziraphale says. “That long?”

“Mmhmm.” She takes another sip of her wine. “It’s changed a lot, over the years, obviously, and I went back and forth on whether or not to have one, but for the most part, yeah. One of those little human cultural inventions I’ve always sort of fancied.”

Aziraphale nods thoughtfully. “Well, I can understand an attachment to certain human inventions,” he says. He looks her in the eye and raises his glass. “To humanity.”

“Cheers,” Carol says, and clinks her glass with his.


End file.
